Lights on a Distant Shore
by lydia the eleventh
Summary: A varied collection of drabbles and ficlets, mostly centered around the characters of Norrington and Elizabeth. Pygmalion, of Sorts ... James looks back on Elizabeth's rejection.
1. Green About The Gills

Lieutenant Croft looked to Lieutenant Musgrove, and both of them looked at the pale, scrawny midshipman who sat opposite them.

"It was a mistake to bring him," Croft shouted, still barely heard in the roar of the Blue Mermaid, "He's still too green!"

"Yes, he does look a bit green about the gills!" Musgrove bellowed back.

Croft thought to correct Musgrove, but decided against it. It wasn't worth the effort.

"Come on, Mr. Norrington, let's have you back to the _Terpsichore_!"

Midshipman Norrington , just twelve years of age, did not respond.

"Mr. Norrington!"

The boy finally looked up, and more than his eyes were green.

"Sir – I – I -" he stuttered, hands shaking.

"Come on, boy. Out with it," Musgrove growled.

The midshipman promptly lost the contents of his stomach on Musgrove's new sea-boots, and collapsed. Musgrove cursed and stomped his feet impotently.

"Wretched rat! No good will ever come of an officer who can't hold his drink!"

Croft was not convinced, as he hefted the boy. "I rather think he'll make a better man."

The Blue Mermaid was so loud that Musgrove could not hear Croft's rather prophetic words. But Midshipman Norrington outshone them both in time, anyway.

_(Written for _**vivalaliberte**'_s birthday over on LJ, on the prompt, "James goes drinking with the big boys for the first time.")_


	2. Doth Suffer A Sea Change

**Doth Suffer A Sea Change**

She lies in his cot, honeyed blond hair spilling over a canvas pillow and white, sinewy limbs tangled in old, worn sheets. She is asleep.

With her eyes closed, she might well be Elizabeth. But she is not.

James turns back to his charts, weary. It's been years since Calypso came to him; offering this illusion, this drug, in a meager repayment for his eternity. He needs her like an addict needs opium: she lets him remember and forget Elizabeth in the same breath, in the same blink of an eye.

He hates her – the sea has taken everything from him, and left him with this – a cold duty and a mockery of love. He loved Elizabeth, and lost. He still loves Elizabeth. It's what keeps him human, he thinks. But it's driving him insane, inch by inch. Every day, he looses more of himself. His green eyes are fading to grey; his skin is dull and translucent.

His skin is getting thinner, and he's forgetting the feel of Elizabeth.

The sea will wear him down, and take him for her own. It's only a matter of time before he forgets the difference between Elizabeth's smiling brown eyes and Calypso's pitiless dark ones.

_(Written for _**articfox**_'s__ "Mistaken Identity" prompt on LJ)_


	3. Pygmalion, Of Sorts

**Pygmalion, of Sorts**

Ovid tells us of a statue turned to living flesh, out of the love the sculptor, Pygmalion, bore for his creation, Galatea. Pygmalion had created in her the perfect woman and, for want of her, wasted away, worshipping at her perfect marble feet until the gods took pity on him, and gave Galatea life.

Perhaps they ought to have turned Pygmalion into marble instead, as he lay, beseeching, at her feet, and taken the two together, as an allegory of love: Beauty and Pain.

Or perhaps they would be so merciful as to turn me into a statue instead.

I hardly think I shall be so lucky, but it is worth the thought in my jumbled brain to believe that such a lucky respite may yet be granted to me.

I feel cold as marble – as ice – as Death itself, and yet the tragedy is that I know this blow shall not kill me. I shall continue to exist, if you will call it existence, my pain amplified through eternity and into numb apathy.

Henceforth I know I have half a heart, half a mind, half a soul.

_Rejection._

If I was cold, it was because I was wary of showing a full heart. If I was quiet, it was because I did not want my full mind known. If I was reserved, it was because a soul is too precious a thing to be worn upon one's sleeve.

Rejection has ripped these feeling things from me, left me bare and mechanical.

Elizabeth refused me because she thought me a cold, unfeeling man. The irony of rejection – I have become the man she feared to marry. I have become a statue.


End file.
